The underscore is for a single object that has two parts (in this case a number)
The fullstop is the delimiter which seperates actions and directions, and you finish it off with a colon.
But, there are some commands that have directions in the element like: balloon_switch_down and conveyor_belt_1_right.
But the most confusing ones (for me anyway) are the "turning" commands.... I always have to sit and think about it for a while
The best way to learn something is by looking at somebody else's work.
Before we had the forum it was pretty much the only way (or email Holger everytime)
I learned a lot by looking at Jue's graphicinfo (Jue1 was the only fully customized game at the time), experimenting with elements and eventually adding my own ideas (when it sunk in).
So how did Jue know about all the graphicinfo commands? Who knows!
> So how did Jue know about all the graphicinfo commands? Who knows!
Because he helped inventing this new technique that wasn't there before R'n'D 3.0.0. :-)
The whole story goes more or less like this: There is another EM clone, Sapphire Yours, that also offered custom artwork (long before R'n'D supported this), and Jue already created a fully customised level set for this game. He wanted to do the same for a R'n'D set, and pointed me to some sort of "artwork elements" in Sapphire Yours, which were just walls which could be decorated with artworks or even animations. Jue wanted to have the same for R'n'D, and when adding this, I thought that it would be nice to also be able to set some properties of these "walls", like "destructible" or "indestructible". Or "slippery". Or "can be pushed". Or even "can fall". So, the first custom elements were born! :-)
About the "_" and "." thing: As Alan already said, think of the "." as a separator that groups together elements, actions and directions. The "_" is only used to separate words that describe elements or actions -- think of it as a normal character like A-Z, without any special meaning.
To better understand when to use "foo_left" or "foo.left", check if the direction is used on an element that could move in that direction. If it can, use the dot notation, like "bug.left". If it cannot, it's just part of the element name, like "sp_port_left" or "acid_splash_left" (which never move to any other tile).
> So Jue could be considered the forefather of custom elements?
Yep, definitely! (Although you added quite a lot of further ideas and features to implement during the development of BD2K3, if I remember correctly...)
> I hate to say this, but ConfEdit would be absolutely perfect for you right
> now. It's just a shame it doesn't work for you!
Alan's right here -- there's no better and faster way to handle such things than ConfEdit... :-/